Becoming Like the Master

Novel Answers to Age Old Questions: Where Do I Fit In?

We are now into our second season of our series, Novel Answers to Age Old Questions. In our 1st season we began with the question of “Is There a God?” Now we are answering questions about where we fit in. We’ve discussed the Problem of Sin, Salvation, and today I want to talk about God’s design for us to become more like Jesus. But, first a question.

How Do We Respond to the World’s Accusation that Christians are Hypocrites?

I think that all of us at some time or another have been accused of being a hypocrite. Maybe there was a little bit of truth in the criticism. Maybe your reasons for acting a certain way were not based on Christ but on being religious. The truth is that we all can be accused of being hypocritical at one time or another.

However, some critics of Christianity don’t realize at the essence of Christianity is the fact that we are all disciples following a Master. I’m told that our current culture is steering away from the term ‘master’. Hotels are changing the names of the rooms and interior designers are looking for another term for Master bedrooms. As disciples of Jesus, as Christians, it is an essential understanding. We are students of the Master. No one expects the Karate student to know more than the Master instructor knows. That is just practical knowledge.

Matthew 10:24–25a NIV

“The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!

In the same way, Christians are simply “Christian people, doing life, under Lordship.” Jesus is the Master and we are His disciples. The Master continues to work on us through prayer, the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit.

Like It or Not

One of the amazing things about this life is that we become like our parents. Each time that we are visiting in NY we try to get a picture with all the generations together. Great grandpa, Pops, Jesse, and Hudson. With the exception of Hudson’s blonde hair, there are striking resemblances from my father all the way down to my son.

I’ve noticed Cindy has a new laugh. It is just like her older sister’s laugh. I don’t know where it came from except that it came from her family. Cindy looks more and more like her mother.

Cindy and I are both proud of our families, but this becoming like it far more powerful than either of us ever expected. There are qualities that we are very proud of, and then qualities that we wish were different. It would have been nice to have a faster metabolism and be taller!

Fortunately, in Christ there are only good qualities that should be becoming more and more obvious in our lives! As disciples of the Master, we are well aware of the fact that we are far from perfect. Fortunately, this isn’t a revelation to Jesus. He has a plan and that plan involves sanctification. The Bible teaches 3 facets of sanctification.

Becoming Like the Master

Disciples Have 3 Powerful Tools in Sanctification

1st - Positional Sanctification

This aspect of our sanctification occurs by faith in Christ simultaneously, at the moment of our conversion.

Hebrews 10:10 NIV

And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

We talked at length about this last week.

2nd - Progressive Sanctification

You’ve probably been behind cars with bumper stickers (so outdated) or have seen posts on social media like these:

- Please be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet

- Caution: Christian under construction

These expressions are talking about progressive sanctification. We are growing, changing, learning, and becoming more and more like Christ.

1 Peter 2:1–3 NIV

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Stanley Horton writes, “A great Biblical truth is that God begins with us where we are. How wonderful it would be if older, mature Christians were as patient with new converts as God himself is. That which marks the true perfection of a child of God is not his arrival at absolute sinless perfection, but his upward aspiration.”

3rd - Glorification

The desire of the soldier of the Cross looks ahead to the time when this period of probation will end and there will be a final state of holiness. After this world, believers who have kept true to Christ will be in a permanent relationship with God that will not be subject to failure. (Eph 4:7-13)

As Disciples We Will Have Problems

Jesus’ disciples are famous for their lack of faith and times when they put their feet in their mouths. Peter’s failure gets the most use but there are others. James and John had their mother try to get special thrones for them in heaven. Thomas doubted the resurrection. All of them trembled on the stormy seas. Nathaniel couldn’t see a possibility of feeding the thousands. They were far from perfect! We are disciples of the Master, becoming more and more like Him but struggling along the way.

Some Bible teachers teach that the old nature is “rooted out”. It comes from the Wesleyan doctrine of “eradication”. The doctrine is predicated on an understanding of sin as a “something” rather than as a relationship. The source of sin is not a death star or evil galaxy that we encounter from time to time. Sin is disobedience to God. Satan was disobedient to God. Adam and Eve were disobedient to God. And, when we sin, we are disobedient to God. But, we don’t have to be!

“Even though we never come to the place in this life where we are not able to sin, we can have help so that we are able not to sin” – Stanley Horton

Listen to the Apostle Paul as he walks us through this:

Romans 6:1–14 NIV

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Paul acknowledges the problem but never throws his hands up in helplessness. He shows the beauty of grace as too attractive to shame it by sinning. The resurrection of Christ promises new life in Him. Because of this, sin can no longer be master over him unless we allow it. We need to get our thinking correct, do not obey or offer yourself to sin.

Stay prayed up, read up, and filled up with the Holy Spirit!

Romans 8:13 NIV

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

Galatians 5:16–18 NIV

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Closing the Gap Between Who We Are and Who We Ought to Be

We all admire Benjamin Franklin and his commitment to creating our nation. He was also a diplomat, writer, and inventor. He decided that he wanted to be a better man so he created his 13 virtues and tried to implement them. In his humorous way he look back and said,

I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time; I would conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined.

A system will never do. It must be about relationship! The solution to the sanctification gap is not the denial of our passions and desires as bad and then doing moral things to be good. C.S. Lewis once said, “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.” The answer to the sanctification gap is not moralism but falling more deeply in love with Christ.

We do this through spiritual disciplines, learning about Jesus through practices that retrain our hearts to come and die that we might experience true life. New loves shape and replace the sinful inclinations of our hearts, and the by-product is good works. The good deeds are not the focus; they are a result of us falling more in love with Jesus.

The answer is not sin management but walking in the fullness of the Spirit and growing in relationship with other believers. This is how we end up in a robust spiritual life that ultimately causes us to live a more sanctified life.

As we fall more in love with Jesus, we fall more in love with His cross and all that it means for our daily lives. We bridge the gap not by working harder, but by believing deeper and experiencing God’s grace in greater ways through His Spirit and by His power.[1]

We are Disciples of a Perfect Master

Discipleship is first and foremost about having a relationship with Jesus Christ. This relationship is transformational. Being around Jesus changes us. Norman Douty writes:

"Don't try to be like Him, just look at Him. Just be occupied with Him. Forget about trying to be like Him. Instead of letting that fill your heart and mind, let Him fill it. Just behold Him, look upon Him through the Word. Come to the Word for one purpose and that is to meet the Lord. Not to get your mind crammed full of sacred things about the the sacred Word, but come to it to meet the Lord." Quoted in Miles Stanfords' Green Letters

From time to time, the world may see us as hypocrites but when we spend time with Jesus we look more and more like Him.

Acts 4:13 NIV

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

Becoming like Jesus is not an option. Better than that it is a privilege! As men and women becoming more and more like Jesus, the world will see the influence of the Master on us!

On a wall near the main entrance to the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, is a portrait with the following inscription: "James Butler Bonham--no picture of him exists. This portrait is of his nephew, Major James Bonham, deceased, who greatly resembled his uncle. It is placed here by the family that people may know the appearance of the man who died for freedom." No literal portrait of Jesus exists either. But the likeness of the Son who makes us free can be seen in the lives of His true followers. Bill Morgan.

Let people see the Master in you!

[1] Stetzer, Ed. “The Sanctification Gap”. Influence Magazine. November 14, 2017. Accessed 8 July 2020.